Bucket List
by Poppelchen
Summary: So what do you do if the world hasn't ended? (Post-Nopocalypse)
1. Bucket List

Twenty-two days and seven and a half hours after the Nopocalypse Crowley woke up in his bed, with a plan in mind. It was a perfect plan. A Plan, in fact.

He spent the next two hours compiling a list.

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Twenty-two days, nine hours and forty-five minutes after the Nopocalypse Aziraphale was sitting at the counter in his bookshop and feeling vaguely unhappy. He missed his collection. It wasn't that he didn't like the books Adam had picked out for him – they _were_ all first editions after all – but the initial elation had worn off somewhat. Life did this to you.

It was amazing how boring it all was, boring and...and _mundane_ , he thought. Like nothing had ever happened at all. People were still bustling on the streets. Whales were still dying. Sushi restaurants were still in existence [1].

The doorbell ringing in his ears brutally separated Aziraphale from his quiet musings, which was remarkable, seeing as said doorbell had been broken until a moment ago.

Looking up, he wasn't surprised to see Crowley storming in.

„Angel! "

„Why hello, Crowley. What brings you here?"

Crowley strode through the door and up to the dusty counter, where he pulled a scroll out of his coat pocket that, to the casual observer, looked positively ancient. Aziraphale, however, was _not_ a casual observer and so he scoffed at it, immediately recognizing new paper made to look like old paper. Another annoying trend Crowley had started. [2]

„This ", said Crowley, towering over the angel with a mad gleam in his eyes and slapped it on the wooden counter top. „Take a look. "

Shooting Crowley a questioning look Aziraphale leaned forward to look at the paper. It was a list.

„Eat sushi in Japan. Go to the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro ", he read. „Scuba diving somewhere cool. Flying race through the Grand Canyon. Crowley what the He-..what _is_ this?"

„It's a bucket list ", said Crowley as if that explained everything. It didn't.

The angel frowned. „What's a bucket list? ", he asked.

„It's a list of things you want to do before you 'kick the bucket' ", said Crowley, making air quotes, and looking expectantly at Aziraphale who stared back blankly.

„Crowley, we're _immortal",_ he said. The demon resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

„Your point being? Angel, wenarrowly avoided the Apocalypse three weeks ago. Above and Below might be licking their woundsat the moment but you don't think they'll give up, do you? "

Aziraphale sighed.

„No ", he said and leaned back in his chair with an air of resignation. „I suppose not. "

„Exactly! ", said Crowley. „And who knows how long we've got this time. So- " Crowley stopped dead mid-sentence and gaped at Aziraphale, having only now taken notice of the other's clothes. „Angel, are you wearing _jeans_?!" He pushed his sunglasses up to get a better look. Aziraphale blushed.

„I'm afraid I am. What do you think? "

„But you _never_ wear jeans!", Crowley blurted out.

„Correction, my dear. I've never _worn_ jeans. Until now, that is. ", said Aziraphale, who was still blushing. Crowley merely stared at him. The jeans didlook good but that wasn't even the most amazing part. They were actually fashionable. They looked as if they were from this century _._ This decade, , they looked as if they were from _this_ _year._ In _fact_ they were from the fall collection of the outrageously expensive brand Crowley had launched last year.

„I just thought ", Aziraphale babbled on. „Well. You know. With the apocalypse that didn't happen and everything. It's like you said, who knows how long we've got until the next one? So I thought I might as well try jeans. "

Crowley blinked.

„Um ", he said. „Right. Yeah. " He didn't put his sunglasses back on. Aziraphale was even wearing a nice shirt. No tartan to be seen anywhere [3]. Truly, the world was coming to an end.

The thought snapped him back to the actual reason for this visit.

„Right! ", he said. „Who knows how long we've got. That's exactly it, angel! " He jabbed a long index finger on the list between them. „We should make the most of it. "

„And how do you propose we do that? With this 'bucket list' of yours? " Aziraphale took another look. 'Get really drunk on:' it said. A list of alcoholic beverages followed. It was a very long list. Some items on it sounded downright demonic.

„Yep ", said Crowley and grinned.

„Do I get to add items too, my dear? " Aziraphale raised his eyebrows questioningly.

„Of course ", said Crowley and Aziraphale beamed. „But no books ", he added quickly and the angel's divine glow immediately dropped several notches.

„Fine ", he grumbled. „But I get to pick the first destination. "

Maybe he'd just make his own bucket list.

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* * *

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[1] Aziraphale had eaten sushi almost every day for the past two weeks, just because he could.

[2] It didn't look half bad, but they would never get the smell right. For some things you just needed several centuries of collecting dust somewhere.

[3] Although in all fairness this was because he couldn't see Aziraphale's belt.


	2. Drawing the line

"So. Where to next, angel? ", asked Crowley, slurping noodles and beef broth from the huge bowl in front of him. After over a month he'd gotten quite sick of sushi.

"I don't know ", answered Aziraphale, fumbling around on his plate. Unlike Crowley, who could eat gracefully and efficiently with just about anything he had never entirely gotten the hang of chopsticks, but what he lacked in dexterity he made up for in determination.

They were both speaking Japanese. After spending so many millennia on Earth with humans – who, for large parts of their history, had killed other humans for being the wrong colour, wearing the wrong clothes, believing in the wrong god or speaking the wrong language to only name a few – the two of them had long since established a firm habit of switching to the local tongue of wherever they happened to be at the moment [1].

"We've been to 26 different onsen _._ [2] A week of nothing but shrines and temples. Hiking in Hokkaido. ", recounted Aziraphale.

"Osaka. _Nagasaki_ " continued Crowley and managed not to sneer too much. Both of those had been nostalgic visits for the angel, who had lived in Nagasaki during his time as a missionary and had been there during the construction of Osaka castle. Not necessarily something to sneer at, but after his trip down memory lane Aziraphale had somehow managed to persuade Crowley to take a Calligraphy class with him. After this initial success he'd then attempted to talk the demon into taking several other courses they were offering as well, but Crowley had drawn the line at Ikebana. [3]

"And after you've dragged me through Ginza, Roppongi, Shibuya, Shimokita and Shinjuku ", Aziraphale followed up and counted them off on his fingers. "I think we can cross Tokyo off the list too. "

"Mfff", made Crowley, supposedly in the affirmative but with his mouth full of egg and Kobe beef it was hard to tell. He swallowed. "Tell you what ", he said, waving a chopstick. "Japan has too much bloody culture. Let's go somewhere less civilized. "

"Like what?"

"Like, like..." Crowley wrecked his brain, trying to come up with places lacking civilization that were also not currently war-torn hell holes. "Like Iowa", he finished lamely.

"My dear, I think we can do better than _that_ ", said Aziraphale slightly aghast.

Crowley had to agree. Silence fell again, broken only by the sounds of two man-shaped beings eating ramen.

"Still, the States doesn't sound too bad ", the angel said after pondering on this for a while. "Didn't you put the Grand Canyon on the list?"

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* * *

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[1] After one week of feeling like it was Babel all over again, the natives had finally started to understand Aziraphale. Another week after _that_ their faces had stopped twitching in their obvious efforts not to be rude and laugh at his odd way of speaking. While Crowley had been to Japan in the 1980s and only needed to brush up on his slang, the angel's last visit had been as a Portuguese missionary in the late 16thcentury and it had taken him a while to catch up linguistically.

[2] Originally, their goal had been to "visit every single onsen in Beppu" but when there turned out to be several thousand, they had mutually decided to cut that item short. Even Crowley who, due to his serpentine nature, positively relished a nice long soak in hot water more than Aziraphale, had gotten bored after a dozen or so.

[3] Instead, he had gotten extremely drunk on sake and woken up with a purple pufferfish tattooed on his chest the next day. It was badly drawn, but he had chosen to keep it for now - if only as a reminder of the proverbial notch in his bedpost of hell-bound souls. It was a very big notch.


	3. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

"Are you sure this is a good idea?", asked Aziraphale nervously.

"Please, angel. What could possibly go wrong? All you have to do is open your wings in time", said Crowley and, before the angel could tell him _exactly_ what could go wrong [1], vanished their clothes with a snap of his fingers. [2]

The two of them were standing on a huge, u-shaped glass platform protruding into what was commonly known as the Grand Canyon. Only hours before the platform had been crawling with tourists but now – at midnight and new moon – their only company were billions of stars sparkling in the pitch black sky above them. Illuminating what, in Aziraphale's opinion, was one of the masterpieces of divine creation. Even Crowley had had to admit that a name like "Grand Canyon" did not quite cut it. It truly was a magnificent place and they would get to see all of it.

There was a whooshing sound when an enormous pair of soft, feathery wings spread out behind Crowley and then another as Aziraphale followed his lead. They took up position on the high railing designed to keep careless tourists from plunging to their death; balancing precariously or, in Aziraphale's case, by miracle.

The angel peered over the edge. Some distance away the Colorado River glittered invitingly.

"Why do we have to be naked again?", he asked. He'd still not quite understood this point.

"Because", said Crowley and Aziraphale sighed.

"Ready?", asked the demon.

"Ready", said his companion.

"On count of three then", said Crowley. "Actual three", he added, in order to clarify. [3]

The angel nodded and clasped Crowley's hand.

"One", he began counting.

"Two", followed Crowley. They folded their wings.

And with a raucous "THREE!" they let themselves fall forward, dropping head first into the cool night air like two large, winged and vaguely human-shaped stones.

There were whooping sounds.

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* * *

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[1] It was a long list and involved several unpleasant ways of inconvenient discorporation.

[2] The finger snapping wasn't strictly necessary, but it added a dramatic flair and Crowley had always liked dramatic flair.

[3] Being a demon, his usual modus operandi was to cheat, i.e. to count "One...three!", a fact of which Aziraphale was of course well aware.


	4. Told You So

"Crowley!", hissed Aziraphale. "Crowley, look!" He enthusiastically poked the large black snake wrapped around the branch he was perching on.

"Hnffss", made the snake and lazily opened its eyes. "Whasss the matter angel? I was having a wonderful dream. It involved Hastur and Ligur and a pool of holy-"

"Look! They're here!", interrupted him Aziraphale, pointing excitedly to a particularly big and gnarly tree a dozen meters ahead of them and nearly falling off their own tree. "The gorillas are here!"

That did get Crowley's attention – for the snake was no other than him – at last.

"What? Where?", he asked. Aziraphale shushed him. Completely unnecessary, if you asked Crowley. Animals were never disturbed by an angel's presence and he had concealed his by turning into a form native to the forest. But that was angels for you.

Crowley followed Aziraphale's line of sight. It took him a few seconds to adjust to the light but then he, too, spotted the big silverback the angel had seen, soon followed by the rest of his troop.

The watched silently.

After a few minutes, Aziraphale turned to Crowley and said triumphantly: "See? Nests. "

"You don't have to look so smug, angel ", grumbled Crowley. "Those are monkeys! Monkeys building nests, I mean who came up with that!"

"Apes", corrected him Aziraphale.

"What?"

"Gorillas are apes, not monkeys. It's quite an important distinction", the angel explained.

"Same differenccce", hissed Crowley and tried to roll his eyes, a task snakes were not very well suited to. Nevertheless, he managed to get the point across by means of an annoyed head twist.

"Anyway, they build nests", said Aziraphale, sensing there was little point in starting an argument about proper primate terminology. "I get to pick the next destination."

"Fine.", said Crowley. "As long as you pick something with alcohol. "


	5. I brought proper knives

"I thought I told you to pick something with alcohol", said Crowley and looked suspiciously at the two humungous pumpkins in front of them. They were lying on riverbank for some reason. To their left and right a number of other people were either gathered around their own giant pumpkins or bustling about, busy with G- Someone knew what. In either case they were talking animatedly in fast _qu_ _é_ _b_ _é_ _cois_. Crowley hated _québécois_.

Aziraphale showed a calculating little smile and held out a hip flask.

"Are you kidd – that does _not_ count, angel!", spat Crowley and glared at it, although he thought the engraved snake was a nice touch.

"It's your favourite brandy", said Aziraphale, with a slightly guilty look on his face.

"What's all this anyway", grumbled Crowley and vaguely indicated the commotion around them before snatching the flask from Aziraphale's hands. He unscrewed the top and gave it a casual sniff. Not bad.

"This, my dear", declared Aziraphale and made a dramatic one-armed sweeping gesture, "is the famous _Potirothon of Gentilly!_ "

This did not have the desired effect.

"Never heard of it", said Crowley and tried the brandy. "What the eff is a Potirothon?" He suspected it to have something to do with pumpkins, but that one was easy to guess seeing as they were surrounded by the blasted things.

"It's a portmanteau of 'potiron' and 'marathon' ", Aziraphale explained smugly. "In other words: It's a pumpkin race."

Crowley nearly spit out his brandy.

"It's simple, really", continued the angel jovially. "You grow a giant pumpkin, you hollow it out and _voil_ _á_!" – he made another dramatic sweeping motion – "Now you have a canoe. Canoes. Race." He beamed at Crowley and then surveilled the racing grounds or, more accurately, wets with the expert eyes of someone who has no idea what to look for in a racing wet.

"A race. In canoes made from hollowed-out pumpkins", Crowley repeated disbelievingly, just in case he'd misunderstood. He had the terrible feeling he hadn't. [1]

"Yes!", said Aziraphale cheerfully.

"No."

Crowley took a look at the pumpkin before him. He remembered the assortment of odd tools his companion had brought with him and another dreadful suspicion snuck up on him.

"Hang on – you don't expect me to carve this thing out _by hand,_ do you?", he said aghast, when the penny dropped.

Aziraphale scoffed at this.

"Of course not!", he replied and Crowley was about to let out a sigh of relief, when the angel followed it up with: "I brought proper knives."

Crowley knocked back the contents of the entire flask.

.

####

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"You cheated!", Aziraphale accused him.

"Did not", said Crowley smugly and polished the little gold trophy with his sleeve. [2] They didn't usually hand out trophies like these at the _Potirothon_ but Crowley naturally assumed he would get one whenever he won a competition. It had a little pumpkin on top.

"You poked a hole in my pumpkin!"

"Or maybe _my_ pumpkin was simply better than yours. You know I have a way with plants."

"That's not how – holes in my pumpkin canoe have nothing to do with 'having a way with plants', Crowley!"

"Clearly you know nothing about pumpkins, angel. You should stick with your books."

.

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* * *

[1] Though it at least explained the paddles. Crowley had wondered about those.

[2] It still had bits of pumpkin on it.

* * *

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 **Notes:** Yes, the pumpkin race is an actual thing. I just found out about it today because a friend sent me the tumblr link and immediately knew this was going to be Crowley & Aziraphale's next stop. Probably should have published this at Halloween but I just got too excited about it tbh xD


	6. Look at the face

"Lovely, isn't it?", said Aziraphale brightly. The two of them were currently strolling casually through the Munich Glyptotheque's new 'Gods in Colors' exhibition. "How wonderful that they have rediscovered the colours! Truth to be told I've always been a bit annoyed by all the white marble… I always thought I should just go and point it out to someone, 'Look here, chaps, this is not how those statues looked at all' but I never got around to it, you know how it is."

"Tell me about it, angel", said Crowley, before the angel could ramble on. "You do realise they've known about the colours for ages though?"

"But… if they knew about them then why wouldn't they restore them, my dear?", asked Aziraphale and sent him a puzzled look.

Crowley shrugged.

"Didn't fit their white suprmacsssist world view I suppose", he ventured cynically.

"That was nasty."

"Need I remind you of all the missing noses?", said Crowley, raising his eyebrows.

Aziraphale conceded the point, then got distracted by a particularly fine figurine of an archer. It looked startlingly accurate, which meant that it was positively garish by modern standards.

"Hang on, that archer statue seems familiar", said the angel excitedly and scuttled off. "I think I've seen this one before. Oh, where was it…" Aziraphale bent down to examine the sign beneath it. " _The archer 'Paris' from the West Pediment of Aphaia Temple in Aigina, ca. 480 BC_ ", he read. "Huh. Could have sworn it was in Thebes. Have we even been to Aigina?", he asked, turning to Crowley who had followed him.

Crowley furrowed his brows as he attempted to stitch together the shambles of his vague recollection of Mediterranean geography.

"Dunno. I don't think I was, but I can't be sure… Weren't we at war back then?"

"I think you might be right", said Aziraphale. "I'm sure there was a Naval battle at some point. Err, do you remember who we were up against?"

"Beats me", said Crowley. "Too bloody many of them."

"What, battles or enemies?"

"Both", said Crowley darkly.

Aziraphale gave a little sigh.

"I agree. Anyway: The point is, my dear, that I remember that archer and the colours seem about right to me. It looks absolutely lovely."

"Yeah", agreed Crowley absent-mindedly, his attention already wandering elsewhere. The gloomy expression on his face brightened up considerably when he spotted the armless statue of a young man at the other end of the room.

"Check this out, angel!", he said excitedly and crossed the room the room in several big strides, dragging the unsuspecting angel along. "I _definitely_ know this one!", he said and gestured at the statue with a broad grin.

Aziraphale inspected it but couldn't find anything unusual about it. He raised a questioning eyebrow at Crowley.

"Oh, for G-, for Sa-, for Someone's sake, angel! Look at the _face!_ "

Aziraphale did and – after another minute of scrutiny – recognized it.

"Oh my!", he exclaimed. "It's you, isn't it? Gosh, I never knew you'd posed for a statue!"

"There's a lot you don't know about me, angel [1]. This statue is the least of it. Statue _s_ , actually", said Crowley smugly. "Plural. Didn't think I'd ever see one of them again." He admired the figurine's perfect painted plaster pecs and then scowled. "They got the colours wrong, though", he remarked pedantically. "I'm sure my skirt was more of a mauve, not this weird shade of lavender. And my sssskin was most definitely darker. I think someone needs to have A Word with the restorers."

Aziraphale constrained himself to an agreeable hum. He had only the faintest idea of what either colour was supposed to look like and, in all honesty, couldn't recall the exact shade of brown Crowley's skin had had at the time at any rate.

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* * *

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[1] This was – to put it charitably – blatantly untrue unless you defined 'a lot' as 'an amount so small that compared to the things the angel _did_ know about Crowley it was like a dust particle in a desert: it was technically there but in the grand scheme of things practically non-existent'.

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* * *

A/N: Oh Gods I was trying to come up with another chapter for Christmas... and then I realised that I had not even posted the last one I wrote for some reason! Probably because I was saving it for Christmas and then forgot about it. Is that good luck for me now or a terrible oversight?! Anyway, the ancient Romans and Greeks really did paint their statues and the "Gods in Color" exhibition is real too. I saw it and figured it's something Aziraphale would have an interest in :D (I'd quite like to go myself sometime!)


	7. Guten Rutsch!

A/N: Happy New Year! Guten Rutsch!

"My turn", said Crowley, rubbing his hands together with a malicious grin.

"Very well", said Aziraphale.

Crowley reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a colourful prospect titled _World's Best Waterslides_ , which he handed to Aziraphale with a flourish. The angel flicked through it and slightly paled.

"We don't have to do all of them", said Crowley. "I've narrowed it down to five I absolutely want to go to."

"I'd rather not, my dear", said Aziraphale.

"Too bad", smirked Crowley. "We'll start with the _Super S Slide_ in South Korea."

"If we must", acquiesced Aziraphale with a sigh and succumbed to his fate. "I'll book the flights then, shall I?"

"You do that. Oh, and angel?", said Crowley innocently.

"Yes, Crowley?"

"Swimwear must be no older than ten years."

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###

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"Who-eee!", exclaimed Aziraphale excitedly, when he scrambled out of the pool on wobbly legs. He wiped a few drenched and thoroughly mussed curls out of his beaming face. "Whew. I must say, I didn't think it would be this much fun! Let's do it again!"

He turned back to Crowley, who was faintly green in the face and had only just clambered out of the inflatable ring they had ridden in.

"I think I'll pass", he muttered. "I'm currently questioning my life choices."

"We're still going to go to that Cobra one in Turkey though, aren't we?"


	8. Pyramid Scheme

"We really shouldn't be doing this", said Aziraphale nervously, although he kept climbing after Crowley. "It's illegal."

The demon snorted. He clambered up the last bit, then stood up and extended a hand to a grateful Aziraphale.

"Angel, we were literally here when this thing was built", said Crowley, as he was pulling him up, "If anybody's got a right to climb on top of it it's us."

"Still", insisted the angel, "One ought to respect authorities."

"Provided they are respectable", said Crowley.

This was a statement Aziraphale could not argue against and so he didn't. Instead he used a hand to shield his eyes from the blazing sun so he could have a look around and take in the spectacular view with obvious delight.

"Not bad, isn't it", said Crowley smugly.

"It is quite a good vantage point, I give you that", concurred Aziraphale, "And as much as it pains me to admit it: You were right about the climbing. One does appreciate the view much more if one has to work for it."

The demon had insisted on them going to the top of the Cheops Pyramid the human way, i.e. by climbing[1] rather than flying straight to the top.

"Yeah", agreed Crowley. "Oi, you reckon we should hop over to the other ones? Get on top of each of them?"

"I do hope you mean by wing", said Aziraphale, a slight hint of dread creeping into his voice. Despite the relative ease with which they had scaled the pyramid, once had been enough thank you very much. Crowley snickered.

"Yes, angel, by wing. I don't fancy climbing up another one either", he said.

"Then I shall gladly accompany you, my dear", said Aziraphale.

The angel's initial agitation had markedly declined, seeing as the guards had still not spotted them yet (and never would, no matter Crowley's antics). The pyramids, too, did not seem in any danger of toppling over the moment anyone set foot on them and Aziraphale had relaxed considerably, feeling quite silly about his initial worries now.

The two of them ambled around the uppermost platform for a bit longer, enjoying the view, until Crowley eventually got bored. He vanished his shirt with a thought and lazily unfolded his wings. Aziraphale did the same (although he meticulously folded his shirt and carried it) and they were about to take off for the Khafre Pyramid, when Crowley suddenly stopped and raised a halting hand. He folded his wings back into their higher sphere, then stepped perilously close to the edge of the pyramid's top until the tips of his snakeskin shoes were protruding over it. His shirt reappeared. Grinning manically, Crowley spread his arms in a dramatic fashion, took a deep breath and hollered:

"I'm the king of the world!"

He laughed and turned expectantly to Aziraphale, but the angel merely looked bewildered.

"What was that all about?", he asked; wondering if Crowley had perhaps suffered a heatstroke. It would not have been the first time.

"Oh, for the love of… It was a movie quote, angel!", said Crowley and rolled his eyes. "Have you never seen _Titanic_ , for crying out loud?", he asked.

This appeared to baffle the angel even more.

"Of course I have, dear", he said slowly, "As have you. We were on it when it went down, don't you remember? You gave up your s-"

"Not the real one, you idiot! The film! It's a classic!", hissed Crowley, interrupting him.

"Gosh, really? I've never heard of it."

"You really need to get out more, angel"

"Was it any good?", asked the angel.

"It was a masterpiece of cinematic kitsch", Crowley told Aziraphale, "You'll love it."

"Huh", said Aziraphale contemplatively. "Well, remind me of it when we get back to London, will you?"

"Sure", said Crowley, who was positive they both would have forgotten this exchange by tomorrow [2].

Aziraphale regarded the Khafre Pyramid in the distance.

"Anyway", he said. "Want to go on to the next one?"

"Yeah- no, hang on", said Crowley and pulled out his iPhone. "I want to take a picture[3] first!"

Aziraphale sighed internally, put his own shirt back on and then waited patiently while the demon walked around on the small plateau trying to find the perfect spot for a photo.

#

"Just pick a spot already", said Aziraphale, whose patience was starting to wear fairly thin. He wished he had brought a book.

"Just a moment", replied Crowley distractedly.

"You said that fifteen moments ago."

"Well, it's sunset. It's bloody difficult to find the best lighting _and_ get the other pyramids in the background", grumbled Crowley.

"We could take a picture with the city in the background", suggested Aziraphale, taking another look. "Gosh, it has really gotten big, hasn't it?"

"Mhm", said Crowley, who was clearly not even listening, " Look, I just want to get a good photo of us on this pyramid, angel, alright? I helped build it!"

" _You_ incited a slave revolt", said Aziraphale acerbically, "How was that helping?"

"Improved living conditions for the workers, therefore fewer deaths", said Crowley smoothly. He had been prepared for the question. "No workers, no pyramid. More workers, more pyramid. QED."

He kept trying out different angles while Aziraphale was busy attempting to find the flaw in this logic; visibly brightening up a few seconds later, when he finally found the Perfect Spot [4]. Crowley motioned for Aziraphale to come over and sat down cross-legged on a corner, where the sunset was colouring the stones a beautiful orange-red.

The angel joined him with a relieved sigh, both of them automatically slinging their arms around each other's shoulder for support and Crowley held out his arm in the cramped, stretched and universally uncomfortable position of selfie-takers all over the world. He grinned into the camera. Aziraphale smiled. Two pyramids were glowing red in the very last rays of sunlight.

Snap.

###

* * *

[1] By a very loose definition of 'climbing', which involved a general upward movement and a distinct lack of dirt, sweat or getting out of breath. Both Crowley and Aziraphale liked doing things the human way occasionally, but they both also agreed that one should not overdo it unless strictly necessary, i.e. for the purpose of blending in. Since there was one around to blend in with _,_ they had gladly forgotten to include the slightly messier parts of climbing up a pyramid.

[2] He was right. Aziraphale did not watch _Titanic_ until May 21st, 2021.

[3] The demon had recently taken to digital cameras – claiming that the possibility to easily take a sheer endless number of photos bred Vanity in humans and was therefore to be encouraged – and had started to take pictures of them on his phone wherever they went. Aziraphale suspected he really just liked taking pictures of them together.

[4] It should not have been the perfect spot but even the patience of an angel was finite and so Crowley's phone wisely decided to take a perfect picture anyway.


	9. The cider can

A/N: Yeah, so I was looking up the Gavotte on Wikipedia for Good Omens reasons and saw that it's still danced in parts of the Bretagne as part of local festivities. Obviously my first thought was that if Aziraphale read that he would want to go there asap.

* * *

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"No."

"Why ever not?"

"Because it's stupid."

"Since when has that been a hindrance to you, dear boy?"

"You only want to go there because _la Bretagne_ is the only place left on Earth where they still haven't gotten the memo that the Gavotte went out of style over a century ago!"

"I fail to see why you would consider this a negative."

"I'm not doing the Gavotte with you."

"Fine. What's the next item on your list?"

"Pub crawl from Prague to Krakow. Should take about a month."

"Splendid. I'll pick you up in Krakow in thirty days then."

"Er. What?"

"Going to a fest-noz mighty not be entirely up your lane-"

"Alley."

"-but it is most certainly on _my_ list and therefore I'm going. Don't worry my dear, I'll enjoy myself just fine without you. I'll see you in Krakow."

.

###

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"Oh, Crowley! How nice of you to come and join me after all! And what a lovely costume you're wearing!"

"Ssshut up, angel."

"I didn't know you could do a Gavotte."

"Can't. The _csssider_ can. Now start dancing in step, will you."


	10. Wake up call

"Polar bears", said Crowley.

"Penguins", Aziraphale contradicted him.

"Polar. Bears", Crowley reiterated with increasing exasperation.

"Penguins", Aziraphale insisted stubbornly.

"Listen, angel, I looked it up on the internet and it's polar bears up north and penguins down south! Look, here!"

He very nearly shoved his iPhone up Aziraphale's nose.

"It's right there _: '_ _A_ _hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle_ '– that's the", Crowley tapped on the screen. " _'most northerly of the five major_ _circles of latitude'_ for you. North. North Pole. Look at the map. QED."

The demon pointed to the relevant bits on the screen insistently and looked expectantly at his companion.

"Anyone could have written that", said Aziraphale in the desperate tones of someone who knows he has lost the argument but is still too proud to admit it.

"The point is, angel, that in this case _everyone_ has written it and I'm inclined to believe it. Oh, whatever, I'm done arguing about this. I'm gonna go take my nap. See for yourself if you don't believe me."

He tossed the phone to Aziraphale who caught it easily and then almost dropped it when it made an unexpected noise.

"Er, how do I…?"

"You'll figure it out", said Crowley.

There was a whooshing sound as air rushed into the space where he had been a moment ago.

"Just try not to delete any of my music, alright?", he hissed and buried himself into the baking hot sand until only his head and the tip of his tail were visible.

Item #29: Have a week-long nap on a remote beach somewhere warm.

.

###

.

When Crowley woke up hours later, it was nearly dark. He looked around disoriented for a moment until he recognized Aziraphale's face – illuminated by the blue light emitting from the screen of the iPhone he was still holding. The angel was completely engrossed in whatever he was reading at the moment and hadn't yet noticed Crowley.

The demon nudged him with his mouth, causing Aziraphale to violently flinch and nearly fling the phone into the ocean.

"Goodness, Crowley! Don't startle me like that!"

"Sorry", said the demon reproachfully.

"I didn't expect you to be awake again already", said Aziraphale. "It's only half past six. Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just had a weird dream, is all", said Crowley, regarding his phone with interest. "Have you been reading Wikipedia this whole time?", he asked.

"Oh yes! It's truly fascinating concept! A virtual library about anything and everything under the sun!", said Aziraphale excitedly and scrolled down the page he was reading. "Did you know there is even an article about navel lint?"

"Yes", said Crowley, who had written it.

"There is so much to learn, I just couldn't stop reading! I have to say though, some of those history articles are dreadfully inaccurate. I've tried to correct a few of them, but my edits keep getting deleted. They're always asking me to provide sources, it's terrible – I mean, I've _been_ there, you know!"

Crowley stared at him dumbfoundedly.

"I left you alone for less than six hours", he said.

Aziraphale ignored him, clicking on another link instead.

"Oh, and I took the liberty of booking us a flight to Greenland the week after next", he said absently, his mind already engaged elsewhere. "You were right about the polar bears, but I thought it might still be nice to see them for ourselves. Something for the bucket list."

"We'd better hurry then", said Crowley, after he had gotten over the shock of Aziraphale suddenly being able to book flights online. "If my side keeps it up with global warming they won't be there much longer."

"That was nasty, my dear."

Crowley buried into the sand again.

"Still true, though. Wake me in a week", he yawned.

"Uh huh."

Aziraphale was already back to the screen, fighting a bloodless but no less bloodthirsty editing war on the topic of William Shakespeare.


	11. Polar Opposites

The two snowmobiles came to a stuttering halt.

"We need to go this way!", Aziraphale insisted loudly and pointed in the appropriate direction.

It came out muffled through his face protection and Crowley looked at him slightly confused.

"What did you say?", he shouted back, trying to be heard over the wind.

Annoyed, the angel persuaded the cold to leave him alone for a minute and pulled down the fabric.

"We need to go this way!", he repeated and indicated the direction again.

"No, we need to go that way!", said Crowley, shook his head and pointed in a vastly different one. "Angel, we're completely off course!"

"What are you talking about?", said Aziraphale. "Look here."

He showed Crowley the compass [1] he was holding in what the demon thought was a slightly condescending manner.

"Yes?", said Crowley. "It points to the Magnetic North Pole. Which means we go the way the needle is pointing. Which is that way."

He raised his arm to show Aziraphale again. The angel looked at Crowley as if he had grown two heads.

"Crowley, you do know the Magnetic North Pole – which is actually the south pole, not that it matters – isn't in the same place as the geographic one, do you?"

A sinking feeling crept up on Crowley and settled somewhere in his gut.

"Angel", he said slowly, "Where do you think we're going?"

"To the Geographic North Pole. Obviously."

"No, we're not!", exclaimed Crowley, finding his dreadful suspicion confirmed. "What the – why would we head for _geographic_ north?! I was navigating us to the _magnetic_ one!"

He wasn't exactly sure how much the distance between them was, but he was fairly certain that it was quite far.

"Why on Earth would we head for _magnetic_ north?", asked Aziraphale, similarly aghast and momentarily forgetting that it was really the south pole. "I thought the whole point was to stand at the northern-most point! At the top of the Earth, if you will!"

"Angel, the Earth is a _sphere_! There _is no top_! Magnetic north is the only thing that even remotely makes sense in terms of being a point of interest."

"Actually", replied Aziraphale testily and folded his arms, "it's a spheroid. Which means it's flatter at the top and bottom."

Crowley huffed.

"The Earth does not have a top _or_ bottom", he claimed.

"Yes, it does", said Aziraphale and then, with a triumphant expression, added his killer argument: "I've read all about it on Wikipedia."

Crowley opened his mouth to say something. Crowley shut his mouth.

"Now, if you don't mind", the angel continued smugly, " _I_ will keep heading to the actual north pole."

And with that he pulled up his face protection, restarted the engine of his snowmobile and raced off in the direction of geographic north [2].

###

"I can see the flags!", yelled Aziraphale enthusiastically.

Finally, he thought. That had taken long enough, although considering that they each had been trying to navigate to points several hundred kilometers apart at first, the duration of the journey had not been entirely surprising. Still; they had made it, which came as a relief to both of them. For Crowley because he was a snake and out of his element – the snowstorms and icy-white nothingness were starting to get to him – and for Aziraphale because he missed his books. Not to mention that while the angel had wanted to see polar bears in general, he had not planned to get quite such a close-up view of one of them.[3]

Aziraphale turned to beam at Crowley and then frowned when he saw the demon's smirk.

"Why are you grinning like that?", he asked, bewildered and mildly suspicious.

"Nothing, angel. Nothing at all. Oh look, we're here."

They had reached a half-circle made up from a number colourful flags from different nations; all fluttering madly in the icy arctic wind. In front of it were a small pole striped in red and white, with a glass ball on top, and a big sign post.

Aziraphale almost immediately killed his engine and jumped off the snowmobile excitedly. Crowley meanwhile stayed seated and watched the proceedings with interest.

Feeling slightly giddy with anticipation, the angel stepped between the flags. It looked surreal, he thought, this proof of human life in the middle of nowhere. He shifted his eyes towards the sign post next to the marking pole.

It read: _Magnetic North Pole._

His face fell. Crowley snickered.

"Oh, you utter…", gasped Aziraphale. "Wait until I get my hands on you, you manipulative little – you just _had_ to meddle with the compass, didn't you-!"

Crowley cackled and hit the gas pedal.

.

* * *

[1] It was a regular one, which by all accounts should not have worked this close to the pole but neither Aziraphale nor Crowley knew this and therefore it did.

[2]Though he did stop after about a kilometer to wait for Crowley to catch up.

[3] Crowley had taken a video.

* * *

.

.

A/N: This is not what the Magnetic North Pole looks like. What I described is (ironically) the Ceremonial South Pole plus a sign post. I didn't find anything about whether or not there even is a sign at the Magnetic North Pole but considering that its movement has sped up considerably in the past few years and is now at about 50km/year I presume not. However, Crowley expected flags and a sign post so there were flags and a sign post.

According to the best of my google-fu abilities magnetic north is over 1000km from the nearest permanently inhabited place and its distance from true north is in the vicinity of 500km. The nearest anything to the Geographic North Pole is the floating Russian base _Camp Barneo,_ which is reconstructed every year and usually less than 100km from the Geographic North other words: Please don't try to go either Pole never mind from one to the other equipped with nothing but snowmobiles and a compass unless you are an occult or ethereal being who literally can't die.


	12. Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Crowley's list, #74: See if that one café in Istanbul is still there

* * *

 _#_

 _So take me back to Constantinople_

 _No, you can't go back to Constantinople_

 _Been a long time gone, Constantinople_

 _#_

"That song doesn't make a lick of sense", commented Aziraphale.

"What?", said Crowley distractedly.

He had been watching the ongoing squabble of a young couple at the counter and was trying to decide which one of the two deserved to have coffee spilled on them by the passing waitress more.

"I said", replied the angel and pointed vaguely into the air, "This song. The one that's playing right now."

"What about it?", asked Crowley, tearing his attention away from the unfolding drama with difficulty. He smirked when he heard glass shattering and loud swearing from both of them.

"The lyrics don't make sense", repeated Aziraphale. He gave Crowley a disapproving look.

Crowley cocked his head and tried to understand the words over the bustling and chattering around them.

#

 _So take me back to Constantinople_

 _No, you can't go back to Constantinople_

 _Been a long time gone, Constantinople_

 _Why did Constantinople get the works?_

 _That's nobody's business but the Turks!_

 _#_

"Makes sense to me", he said.

"Well, _I_ don't get it", said Aziraphale. "Why shouldn't one be able to back to Constantinople? We've been here before and we're here right now!"

"No, we're not. I mean, yeah, we are, but it's not Constantinople anymore", explained Crowley patiently, "it's called Istanbul now."

"So? It's still the same city."

"Well… yes and no. It's like… You know the old saying about how you can't cross the same river twice?"

"No", said Aziraphale, wondering where on Earth this was going. "How does it go?"

Crowley looked at him blankly for a second and then said, slowly: "It says: 'You can't cross the same river twice' " and, after Aziraphale gave him a blank look back, elaborated with: "It's a metaphor. The river isn't the same river you crossed before, because it has changed. Because the water is constantly flowing and everything."

"Well, that's just ridiculous! It's still the same river. Same river, different water", said Aziraphale.

"Exactly. _Different._ It's different than before", Crowley replied.

"Yes, but that holds true for literally everything. This café for example. The quality of the _revani_ here has certainly diminished. Or…" The angel looked around for a suitable example. "There", he said, and pointed at the floor. "That piece of lint over there. I'm sure it wasn't here yesterday, but you wouldn't claim the floor is not the same floor anymore because of this, would you?"

Aziraphale lifted his tea cup to drink, looking at Crowley over the rim with smugly raised eyebrows.

"I suppose not", said Crowley, admittedly stumped, and took an uncertain sip of his own black coffee.

"I mean", continued Aziraphale, "a river isn't just the water, is it, it's the river bed too and the stones and the plants and fish and everything. It doesn't, oh I don't know, suddenly change course or something."

"They do, actually", Crowley pointed out with a slightly superior air. He had watched documentaries about this. "Over time. And sometimes humans change the riverbeds on purpose", he said, gesticulating with his fork and very nearly causing a cake missile, "The Thames today hardly looks like it did in the Beginning."

Aziraphale put a finger to his lips and thought about this.

"You have a point there. But they don't usually change their names, do they?", he argued, "The Thames is still the Thames and the Danube is still called the Danube, even though it has changed quite a bit over the centuries."

"True", conceded Crowley, before he downed the rest of his coffee (it refilled itself at once). Properly caffeinated again, he then promptly had a flash of inspiration.

"And churches!", he burst out and banged his hand on the table, startling Aziraphale, who had just helped himself to some of Crowley's dessert. "It's the same with churches!"

The angel stopped chewing momentarily in order to give Crowley a puzzled look.

"They burn down or get destroyed in a war and people build them right up again until no stone is left of the original building", explained Crowley, "Yet no one ever says 'Well, this is Notre Dame 3.0, no, it's just 'Notre Dame' as if it hasn't changed one bit."

Aziraphale swallowed down a mouthful ofcake _._

"Exactly!", he agreed, even though he didn't quite understand why the demon had felt the need to be precise down to the decimal point with the numbering.

"The original material is long gone, but the _concept_ is still there. The _idea_ of the church still exists. Or the river", Crowley added.

The angel nodded.

"Makes sense", he said.

"I think that's actually what they were getting at though", mused Crowley. "In the song."

"Well, they phrased it rather badly then", said Aziraphale indignantly and helped himself to the last piece of Crowley's _revani._


	13. You're Welcome

It was nice, getting a little break from jet setting like this. Travelling the world was all well and good, but there was more to a bucket list than country hopping. Like cooking, for example.

Item #69 on Crowley's bucket list: Learn how to make the perfect _coq au vin_. [1]

The demon was proud to say that after several weeks of cookbooks, Youtube tutorials and plain old trial and error he considered his creations good enough to be eaten. Specifically good enough to be eaten by Aziraphale and that was a high standard indeed, for it was one of the angel's favourite dishes.

Crowley had invited Aziraphale over for dinner tonight at his temporarily re-inhabited flat. The angel was not due to arrive for another hour however, which gave Crowley plenty of time to sing along to Spotify at the top of his voice while he was cooking.

„ _I see what's happening here_ ", Crowley hummed to himself as he was cutting the carrots, „ _Face to face with greatness and it's strange... You don't even know how you feel. It's adorable! Well it's nice to see that humans never change!_ "

Crowley grabbed a heap assortment of carrot peel and end pieces and threw it into the general direction of the bin, then brushed the second heap of orderly cut pieces from the cutting board into a waiting bowl.

„ _Open your eyes, let's begin_ ", he sang, reaching for a large yellow onion. He tossed it playfully into the air - „ _Yes, it's really me, it's Crowley, breathe it in!_ " - and caught it with his other hand, already peeled.

The onion was cut in half and then expertly massacred into hair thin slices.

„ _Yes I know it's a lot, the hair, the bod!_ " – Crowley grinned to himself and shimmied – „ _When you're staring at a demigod!_ ", he belted out at top volume.

Once he was done with the onion it too wandered into a bowl; ready to be sautéd.

„ _Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome! I'm just an ordinary demon guy_ ", Crowley kept singing.

From carrots and onion he moved on to the mushrooms and bacon, before he – still happily shimmying – turned on the stove and put a generous helping of butter in the pan he had prepared.

„ _What's the lesson? What is the takeaway?_ ", Crowley rapped along, word perfect. „ _Don't mess with Crowley when he's on a breakaway!_ " He used the butter knife to gesticulate menacingly at the cutting board, which immediately became sparkling clean again. „ _And the tapestry here in my skin is a map of the victories I win!_ "

Drumming his fingers on the counter Crowley looked at his phone for the time and then his check list. He didn't really need one anymore, but having one made him slightly less anxious. He was cooking for Aziraphale after all. „ _Look where I've been I make everything happen!_ ", he sang, happy to see that everything was going according to plan, „ _Look at that tiny cool Crowley just tippity-tapping!_ "

With a grin and a flourish Crowley snapped his fingers at the abandoned butter knife, causing it to spontaneously break into an amusing tap dance with a fork. He swung around and reached for the flour.

„Hello, dear."

There was no record scratch. There should have been one by all accounts: Crowley had stopped so abruptly dead in his tracks that the flour bag's leftover momentum very nearly took it out of his hand and sailing through the kitchen door.

„Angel!"

„Hello", said Aziraphale again. He was leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed and looking at Crowley with a disgustingly fond expression. His eyes briefly flicked down to the apron Crowley was wearing, lips curling into an amused expression and Crowley felt suddenly very self-conscious about it. The apron was black and said 'kiss the cock' on the front in great big letters. It had seemed funny when he had bought it.

„...How long have you been standing there?", he asked, afraid of the answer.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson continued to serenade in the background.

„Oh, just a couple minutes, my dear", replied Aziraphale. "Didn't want to disturb you."

The angel was still looking at him with that pesky combination of adoring and amused. Even worse, he was cheerfully bobbing his head in time with the tune.

„You weren't supposed to be here until seven", said Crowley sullenly, putting down the flour.

„You said _dinner_ was at seven", Aziraphale pointed out. „I thought I'd come by a bit earlier. Watch you cook."

The demon rolled his eyes.

"Fine", he grunted and waved a hand at his non-existing speakers.

" _You're welcome, you're welc-_ ", sang Dwayne before he was brutally cut off mid-word.

„Oh no, this was really catchy, my dear!", said Aziraphale with obvious disappointment, having been conducting an invisible orchestra with his finger for the last few beats, "Feel free to keep it on! You do have such a lovely singing voice, dear.""

The angel then raised his eyebrows and smiled at Crowley in a way so carefully crafted to look innocent and devoid of any trace of smugness that it made Crowley immediately suspicious.

"I wasn't aware that you were such a fan of animated films."

Crowley growled and shooed Aziraphale out of the kitchen.

.

* * *

[1] This had initially been item number fourteen, but then sixty-nine had turned out to be the rather boring resolution to „finally read Anna Karenina for someone's sake this is getting embarrassing" (He had started the novel in 1873, when it had first come out but never finished it). Crowley had skimmed through his list, snickered like a schoolboy when he found number fourteen and immediately switched their respective places on the list.


	14. It's a date

**Aziraphale's Bucket List #71: Plant a tree**

"How utterly fascinating!", said Aziraphale, waving for the waiter to bring them another round of coffee. "Two thousand years! I didn't know seeds could survive this long without rotting. What kind of plant is it?"

"A Judean date palm", explained the botanist. "They were everywhere at the time. Dates were a staple food and the trees used for shade, but they have since gone extinct. Well, not dates in general, but this particular variety."

Aziraphale smiled and nodded. He knew that of course. Shame, really. Back in the day the humans had made quite a delicious wine from it, too. Gomorra especially had been famous for it. Crowley had loved those little cocktails, hadn't he?

"Interesting. What are you going to do with them?", he asked Dr. Solowey, not having the foggiest idea of what kind of tests one might run on ancient seeds these days. As was often the case, Aziraphale's understanding of science was several decades behind the times.

Dr. Solowey frowned into her coffee.

"Actually they asked me to try to germinate them", she said.

Aziraphale's brows shot up in surprise.

"You can do that?", he blurted out.

Dr. Solowey chuckled and shook her head.

"Truth to be told: I doubt it", she told him bluntly. "I don't think it's going to work. But we will learn something, no matter how it goes. That's the beauty of science, isn't it? It's always worth a try."

"Oh, I absolutely agree with you on that", said Aziraphale excitedly. He smiled and patted her hand. "And who knows: You might just find that you have a green thumb."

 _._

 _._

 _"He is over three meters [ten feet] tall, he's got a few offshoots, he has flowers, and his pollen is good," she says. "We pollinated a female with his pollen, a wild [modern] female, and yeah, he can make dates."_  
 _In 2005, Solowey, an expert in desert agriculture, germinated the ancient seed, which was recovered decades earlier from an archaeological excavation at Masada, a historic mountainside fortress. The seed had spent years in a researcher's drawer in Tel Aviv. In the years since Methuselah first sprouted, Solowey has successfully germinated a handful of other date palms from ancient seeds recovered at archaeological sites around the Dead Sea._  
 _"I'm trying to figure out how to plant an ancient date grove," she says. To do that, she'll need to grow a female plant from an ancient seed as a mate for Methuselah. So far, at least two of the other ancient seeds that have sprouted are female. If Solowey succeeds, she notes, "we would know what kind of dates they ate in those days and what they were like. That would be_

"What's that you're reading?", Crowley interrupted him, trying to sneak a glance at the screen as he set down the cup of freshly brewed tea.

Aziraphale looked up from his kindle.

"Oh nothing, my dear", he said lightly, taking the tea with a grateful smile. "Just checking in on a long time project."

The angel closed his eyes for a moment as he blew on the hot liquid, smiling to himself.

And dreamed of date cocktails.

.

.

.

* * *

A/N: Article taken from here: news/2015/03/150324-ancient-methuselah-date-palm-sprout-science/ (2019-10-23; 16:35 CET)

I couldn't find anything whether or not they actually made wine from the dates (you can also make palm wine from the tree sap) in the area at the time but a) date wine is A Thing, the Egyptians did it b) no one knows where exactly Sodom and Gomorra were anyway (if they existed at all) and most importantly c) it's humans we're talking about. If it can be fermented it will be fermented.


End file.
